Forgotten Gems: Doom 64

 

Imagine you're a kid in the early 90s. You're used to console games like Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog. You know PC gaming, the likes of Math Blasters, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, or King's Quest. And then all the sudden, one day at the store in 1993, you lay your eyes on the gruesome, evocative image above. You'd basically flip your shit, right?

Well even though things like Mortal Kombat had already come along a year previously, that's still how many kids, and adults, felt at the time. The computer game, Doom, by Id Software, was a "game changer", in many ways. Even though it wasn't actually the first of its kind!

Say hello to Catacomb 3D.

And his brother Wolfenstein 3D.

Id Software themselves, had actually already laid the groundwork for what would become known as the "First Person Shooter" sub-genre of gaming, a year prior themselves with the classic 1992 PC hit Wolfenstein 3D. But there's more! They had actually already made what was basically a prototype to THAT, the year prior in 1991, with a far-lesser-known gem called Catacomb 3-D. Catacomb was a 3D sequel to top-down games they had previously made, and was essentially a "fantasy" version of the genre (think Heretic or Hexen), where you fight goblins and demons and things, and shoot magic missiles instead of firing a gun, etc. Catacomb is actually a lot of fun, and a lot more people should go dig it up and give it a whirl!

For Wolfenstein's part, it was also inspired by previously existing 80s games called Castle Wolfenstein and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which were simple, Berzerker style "guy goes from room to room" affairs. When developing what would technically become the third in the franchise, Id didn't have the rights to call their game Wolfenstein, even though they wanted it to be. They eventually got the rights, and BAM, the now infamous Wolfenstein 3D, starring BJ Blaskowitz, was born! 

That BJ, hell of a guy.

For my own part, as I may or may not have related in some past article, while I had certainly SEEN games (maybe even sampled) like Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racer, Cruis'n USA etc. in my pre-teen years, the very first 3D game that I'm fairly certain I ever really got to play myself, in depth, was in fact Wolfenstein 3D. My friend Harold popped over one day, and with him, he had a Shareware disk (free/cheap disks that contained the first parts of PC games, as a ploy to get you to buy the rest of the game, something we coveted greatly in those days), of you guessed it, Wolfenstein! I wasn't even sure if our clunky old 386 IBM Compatible would play a 3D game, hell it didn't even have a sound card! But lo and behold, it loaded up fine, and the next thing you know, Harold and I were immersed in 3D polygonal corridors, viscous attack dogs, food just lying on the ground all over the place, and nazis around every corner!

It was likely actually a more intense, spooky experience for us, because all my PC had were little beeping system sounds for the game, no music, etc. Though somehow it did still have the voice samples, like "Halt Stop!" etc. This was, again, only a shareware edition, so it only contained the first third or so of the game, just a handful of levels really. But we played the hell out of them. Even though FPS games, to this day, have never been a major favorite of mine, I will always look back fondly on the time I spent getting immersed in 3D "for the first time" (kinda), and just getting lost in this crazy, maze-like nazi world. 

Pump up the jams!

Say, that's a Big Fucking Gun!

When Doom hit the shelves in December 1993, it made a huge impression. Not only did it cause a major shit-storm, similar to how games like Mortal Kombat, and believe it or not, the Sega CD cheese-fest Night Trap did, but it also became a massive hit. So much so that, to this day, while Catacomb and Wolfenstein came first, and deserve all the credit, most people still refer to these older "corridor" types of shooters, as "Doom Clones", and many give Doom undue credit for establishing the genre. I would amend that to say, it didn't establish it, but it certainly DID popularize it.

The basic setting of Doom is that, in the not-too-distant future, the Union Aerospace Corporation have established a base of operations on the planet Mars, but because travel to and from Earth takes so damn long, they've also had military scientists experimenting with a way to shorten that travel. To that end, they create a means of what they think will "jump" them near instantaneously from Mars to Earth. But what they REALLY did, was opened a gateway to a very Hell-like dimension, and once done, hellish demonic hordes flooded their base, and began wiping everyone out. You, as an unnamed space marine (Doom, or "Doom Guy"), must single-handedly battle your way back from being stranded on the moon, Phobos. 

This game doesn't fuck around, as you make your way from Phobos, to Deimos, and eventually, the pits of "Hell" itself. And in the sequel, Doom II: Hell on Earth, you finally make it back to Earth, only to find that the demons have invaded there, as well. But the story wasn't really what most people were playing these games for. What really made it stand out, and got parents riled up, was the amount of gore they had! Whether it be with a chainsaw, a pulse rifle, a shotgun, or even your bare fists, every time you hit an enemy, blood would spurt, and when you killed them, they would collapse to the ground as a gory, bloody, puply mess. Even your main character's mug, shown on-screen near your health, would eventually get bloody, if you took too much damage. 

Say hello to the Cacodemon!

While the main attraction to Doom, obviously, is running around blasting everything in sight and watching it go splat, a core aspect of the gameplay is actually exploration and, to some degree, even puzzle solving. You don't clear stages by merely killing all the baddies (though that'd be kinda neat). Instead, you have to find, collect, and use colored "Key Cards" (red, blue and yellow), which unlock doors, and eventually allow you to leave via the exit, onto the next stage. Sometimes these cards could be a real bitch to find, as you would have to solve little stage "puzzles", to get doors or hidden panels to open, etc., just to reach them. It was, frankly, the more cumbersome element to Doom, but I suppose it also added to the challenge, and mixed things up. But, much like an old monster movie, when you just want people to stop talking, and have the damn MONSTERS appear already (at least as a kid), sometimes in Doom, you just wanna blast stuff and move on!

The Ultimate Doom?

Now by April 1997, Doom had not only been ported to several different platforms (even the Super Nintendo), but there was the aforementioned Doom II, Ultimate Doom (an expanded version of the original game), and Final Doom. which you could honestly call the original (actual?) Doom III. But in 1997, having launched the previous fall, the Nintendo 64 console was the new hotness, and being more powerful than the Sega Saturn or Sony Playstation, it seemed like it might be tailor made for the Doom experience. But thankfully, instead of being cheap, having someone just make a "straight port" of the now over three year old game, what we got was a completely new adventure!

That's right, a DOUBLE chainsaw!

That lighting, though.

Licensed out to Midway, who developed it in house, this N64 exclusive would not only give us completely redrawn graphics and redesigned enemies, but it also had all-new levels. This was an entirely new game, no skimping, and to any Doom fan, that was awesome. But more than that, at least to my mind, Doom 64 provided what I still to this day consider the ultimate Doom experience. Plus, when it released, roughly half a year after the console itself launched, the system didn't have a TON of games yet, so Doom 64 was a very welcome addition, and actually became something of a hit itself.

While the graphics weren't as impressive, to some at that time, as the fully polygonal games such as Quake or N64's own Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (which had released just a month prior), I would say they were quite impressive, really. Thanks to the N64's hardware features, the 3D stages and textures never looked better, and the redrawn pre-rendered enemy sprites looked fantastic! But the real deal-maker, to me, was the lighting. While the game for some stupid reason had some crazy SUPER dim pre-sets (we had to actually turn the brightness up on the TV), also thanks to that 64 hardware, the game showed off some very eye-popping uses of advanced lighting effects. Very clever uses, in some instances, like a series of corridors where everything's pitch black but for certain little spots, or a room with a spinning "strobe" effect, which is not only disorienting but had a slight effect on near-invisible enemies. In its own way, I would consider Doom 64 to be something of a graphical showcase, as its basically the best looking of the classic, sprites-as-enemies "corridor" shooter mold.

Just look at them sprites.

Meet the Unmaker.

But as if textures, shaded sprites and lighting effects weren't enough, what REALLY puts the Doom 64 presentation straight over the top, is the sound. Unlike the previous Dooms, which had arguably cheesy rock guitar music that kinda ruined the creepy vibe they were going for, Doom 64 has no soundtrack, zero tunes. They instead leaned HARD into the creepiness, as the only sounds you hear, are your gunfire, monster noises, and (progressively more as you advance through the game) ambient, spooky background noises. It really added to the tension and atmosphere, when you'd be in a dark room, surrounded by semi-invisible enemies, but you could hear them (in glorious stereo, if your TV had it). As you progress through the game and make your way to the "Hell" dimension, things REALLY ramp up, as you start hearing more things like ghostly whispers, demonic growling, and what sounds suspiciously like babies crying in the distance. That kind of shit made playing this simple "run and gun" shooter, in the middle of the night with the lights out, some genuinely chilling stuff. 

Along with all-new stages and some new versions of enemies, Doom 64 also gifted us with one totally new exclusive weapon: The Unmaker. Prior to this, the "BFG" (Big Fucking Gun) was THE ultimate weapon for Doom fans. But this Unmaker, which you don't get till late in the game, seems to be made of flesh and bones, truly a weapon from "Hell", and it spews forth evil death-rays, that pretty much lay waste to all but the strongest enemies, quickly. 

Mother is angry....

The game also has an exclusive final boss, never before seen in the series. Up till now, the "Big Bads" had been things like Barons of Hell, or a giant Spider-Demon, or some big evil Face in the Wall. Doom 64 takes it a step further, and introduces us to the MOTHER Demon, ostensibly the very source of all these evil hordes that have been spewing forth from our ill-begotten portals! The Mother Demon fight is a doozy, too, lemme tell ya. Not only is she tough herself, but as she seems to be the source of the demon hordes in general, she also summons demons to help fight you. I always kinda liked this idea, and overall, to me, Doom 64 feels like the true "Doom III", the final end to the series.

I know that an actual Doom 3 would come along later (which I wasn't a fan of), and later games besides. But while I appreciate the attempt at the "old school" approach that the 2016 game and Eternal tried for, to me THIS is it. Much like I prefer my Mortal Kombat 2D, with "digitized" characters, I prefer my doom with blocky corridors, and hordes of 2D sprites to mow down, as well. I don't like the "clever" term some have slapped on these old style shooters of late, "Boomer Shooters" (hell I dislike that idiotic "Boomer" term for anything slightly old, in general). But I DO love these classic kinds of shooters. Like I said, FPS has never been a favorite of mine, but with the exception of N64 Goldeneye death matches (THE best ever), classic shooters like Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen, and Doom are where its at. And as far as this man is concerned, Doom 64 is the best of the bunch. The Ultimate Doom. 

So thankfully for all of you, if you've never played this bad boy, it happens to be available on most modern platforms (Playstation, Xbox, Switch, PC, maybe even mobile devices for all I know), as a fairly inexpensive digital download. AND they even fixed the dim pre-set lighting problem, so the graphics and lighting effects look even better than ever! It's a hell of a fun game, with a surprising amount of atmosphere and spookiness going on. So give it a whirl!

And may all of you have a very happy Halloween!

Forgotten Gems: The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout

As I've related in the past, I grew up a poor kid, who didn't get a Nintendo Entertainment System until late 1990, as an early birthday present. My NES system came with the infamous Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridge, which of course I played the ever loving shit out of (IE as much as my grandmother would let me). In the handful of months between when I got my NES early, as an incentive to be more focused about doing homework (I was allowed to play only if I got it done), and Christmas, I actually did get at least a couple of other games, including another Zapper shooting game called To The Earth, and one that would become an instant favorite, Arkista's Ring.

But thanks to our fairly close proximity to an "All the Best Video" store, which was obviously one of my favorite places growing up, we also rented a fair few games too, just trying out what was on the system. In the future, I will have to write up a piece on the now mostly lost glory of rental stores and game rentals. But for now, sufficed to say, in that same span of time, I was allowed on some weekends, to pick out a game to try. And I want to say that, as I recall, I gravitated early on, to a game based on Bugs Bunny, one of my childhood heroes.

One of my earliest game rentals.

THREE Sylvesters, now THAT'S trouble!

That game, as seen above, was called The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. Though I wouldn't know this for many years, it was originally released in Japan on the Famicom, as simply Roger Rabbit, the first video game to be based off of that amazing piece of late 80s cinema. Not having the Roger license in North America, however, Kemco decided to tweak the graphics a bit, and released it as a Bugs Bunny game instead.

The Roger Rabbit original.

Mickey Mouse on Game Boy.

As you can see, the Roger-based Famicom game and the Bugs Bunny game I rented, are basically the same. Roger's sprite was swapped out for Bugs, and the Weasels from the movie, were instead turned into multi-colored Sylvesters. He would be joined by other Looney Tunes favorites, such as Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and Yosemite Sam. The complicated and interesting nature of game licenses doesn't merely stop with Roger and Bugs, however. In Japan, Kemco continued the series on Game Boy as Mickey Mouse games. But they didn't have the Mickey license for NA, so again, they became multiple Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle installments in the States instead. But to go ever FURTHER, what was known as Mickey Mouse II on Game Boy in Japan, was Bugs Bunny in America, and a game based on the character Hugo, over in Europe. Not only that, but for extra fun, what was known in Japan on Game Boy as Mickey Mouse IV: The Magical Labyrinth, in America became based on The Real Ghostbusters, and in Europe, on the beloved cat Garfield! That might well be the only time in gaming history, certainly that I know of, where a video game series featured six (ultimately seven if you count a Woody Woodpecker game on Game Boy Advance) different licensed properties across its games.


I can't say for 100% certain, but I vaguely remember beating this game, probably the first such rental that I beat. Which is no small feat, considering the game has, as I recall, around 50 stages of gradually increased difficulty. The game itself, regardless of incarnation, revolves around simplistic arcade style action, wherein you have to collect all of a certain item in a given stage, and then reach the exit, without getting caught by the baddies. In Roger Rabbit, you had to collect hearts. In the Bugs game I played, you have to collect, naturally, carrots. In the later games on Game Boy, regardless of character/region, you instead have to collect keys. But all in all, the Crazy Castle games are, in this man's opinion, good simple fun. I am most nostalgic for the first Bugs game I rented, of course, but I would say any of them, with perhaps the exception of the Woody game on GBA, are well worth checking out.

Mickey Mouse

Kid Klown

As a quick aside, this tangled Crazy Castle series, also had a spin-off of sorts. Originally released in Japan as a Famicom sequel to the first two Game Boy Mickey Mouse games, this spin-off was called Mickey III: Balloon Dreams. In it, Minnie has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, and with the aid of some awesome magic balloon abilities, you have to go save her. In all honesty, it would have been pretty great if they had managed to release this as a Mickey game in America, because as Mickey games go, it's one of the best. But, their Mickey license remained Japan-Only, so for the NA release, they transformed the game into a vehicle for a brand new, Kemco original character, known as Kid Klown! This too was a childhood game rental for me, quite some time later, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed, and wish I had owned back then. It, like the game I'm actually here to talk about today, is one of my top favorite NES games.

One of the greatest stars of animation, ever.

The Evolution of Bugs Bunny.

As fortune would have it, while the original Crazy Castle game was released in 1989, 1990 happened to be the 50th birthday of Bugs Bunny himself. Technically speaking, as you can see above, a white rabbit, sometimes referred to as "Happy Rabbit", essentially a prototype version of Bugs, was first featured in the Porky Pig short "Porky's Hair Hunt". A goofier looking, gray rabbit with black-tipped ears, would appear in a couple of early Elmer Fudd cartoons. But what is considered to be the first "Official" Bugs Bunny cartoon, was released in 1940, called "A Wild Hare". This was the first time Bugs had his now infamous look, and the first cartoon in which his well-known personality was truly on display.

That wascally wabbit!

To capitalize on this monumental anniversary, Kemco made a new game, technically unrelated to the Crazy Castle franchise. In this particular case, the game released in all regions basically the exact same, and it was dubbed The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout (or Happy Birthday Bugs in Japan). The game's plot, in fact, was based around Bugs' birthday, and it was, for its time, strongly promoted with the anniversary tie-in.

If only he knew...

It's a trap!

This game was an early rental for me as well, as I guess I must've been on a Bugs kick. And I must admit, that while I enjoyed Crazy Castle, I instantly loved Birthday Blowout much more. A side-scrolling platformer, you play Bugs, who has received a mysterious invitation to a party. Little does he know, that it was sent by his fellow Looney Tunes stars, who apparently are jealous that he is so popular and gets all the fame. So to GET to this party, he has to traverse what turn out to be vast lands, including rolling hills, scorching deserts, haunted caves, and even a live volcano!

The basic gameplay is still pretty simple, but more involved than that of Crazy Castle. As Bugs, you can run and jump, staples of the platformer genre. In fact, being a rabbit, Bugs can jump fairly high, in comparison to most other such games. As his method of defending himself from the variety of traps and monsters that have been set against him, he employs the use of a rather sizable gray mallet, which you use to bonk enemies, and smash blocks in your way. As a kid, I found the block smashing to be rather fun, and even imagined that Bugs' day job must be some sort of construction (or in this case demolition) worker.

Remember this guy?

Another focus of the game, like Crazy Castle but not, is collecting carrots. In this game's case, you collect them for use in the between-level bonus games. In point of fact, this game can be rather generous with the extra lives, IF you're good at collecting carrots, and if you don't just completely suck (or not touch the controller at all), during the bonus games. The most typical bonus stage you get, is a kind of number match game, that is, frankly, nigh-impossible to actually get the numbers you want, due to them cycling by at ridiculous speed. So it's more of a game of chance.

At the end of every world, however, you get the bonus game seen above. It stars the lesser known "Willie the Weasel" character, featured in a few Foghorn Leghorn shorts, and it's basically Whack-a-Mole. You have much more control over whether you get 1-Ups or not, as you have to whack as many Willies as you can within a given time limit. If you reach the next required number whacked, you continue on. I always found this bonus both fun, and a bit frustrating, as sometimes the Willies will psych you out and not actually pop up when you think they will.

Cowabunga, dudes!

The game features six worlds, each with four stages, for a total of twenty four levels. These include grassy hills, a desert, a fiery mountain, haunted caverns, a wild jungle, and finally, an ancient (super dangerous) temple. Each level features an end boss, which happens to be one of your fellow Looney Tunes "friends". The most common is Bugs' friend/rival Daffy Duck, though he is also by far the easiest. I guess ol' Daffy's heart just isn't really in it, as his "fights" require you to avoid him, while getting to a giant carrot that turns into a hot air balloon. In a few of these, it really requires no effort to avoid him, whatsoever. But to be fair, Daffy is also the only boss you can't hit, either.

On the other hand, all of the game's OTHER bosses, feature actual fights, where you have to avoid their attacks, whilst bashing them with your giant hammer. These bosses include: Tweety Bird, Sylvester J. Cat and his son Junior, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Lepew, and Yosemite Sam. At the end of the game, the final boss is none other than the Tasmanian Devil himself, who instead of employing his trademark spin attack on you, he throws...footballs? Very slow motion footballs. While none of the game's bosses are SUPER hard, the fact is, getting through that last Temple level is actually fairly challenging. And beating Taz once you get to him, is not. That is, unless you're super low on hearts, thanks to the damn level prior to him.

Someone forgot to color Bugs in!

 When I rented this game all those years ago, I didn't beat it, though I did enjoy it. I don't think I LOVED it at the time, certainly nowhere near the level of Super Mario Bros., or even Arkista's Ring. But I did enjoy it. So when Christmas 1990 came along, and I got that glorious big brown box, filled with Nintendo goodies, I was rather pleased to find that one of the three games inside, was none other than good ol' Bugs Bunny. Unfortunately for Bugs at the time, not only had I recently played it, but it was also far overshadowed by the MAIN event of that box, the game that would become my instant childhood obsession for years, and still remains my favorite game of all time to this day: Super Mario Bros. 3. But once the initial "HOLY SHIT I OWN MARIO 3" shine toned down a little, I went back to Bugs, and eventually beat that bad boy too!

For some reason, amongst so-called "Retro Gamers", Kemco games, especially Kemco NES games, seem to get a bit of a bum rap. But to me, they produced some genuine gems on that console, two of which, Kid Klown and this, being probably two of my favorite games of all time. Birthday Blowout is a bright, cheerful, fun game, with bouncy tunes and solid gameplay. The game isn't a nail-biter by any means, in fact like Kid Klown, I'd say much of it goes along at a somewhat leisurely pace. But that's OK, because to me that is part of their appeal. Bugs certainly presents challenge, but it isn't so hard it makes you want to throw anything across the room. It's not so long a game that it gets tiresome, but it also has enough meat on them bones, and enough variety (including the bonus games), that there is plenty to come back to. If you've never given this Looney Tunes classic a whirl, I highly suggest you do so, because in this man's humble opinion, it is one of the better games on the system. Certainly one of the best Looney Tunes games ever crafted, I think. 





If you'd like to see the game in action, and don't mind some spicy, goofball commentary (and colorful language), then I'd also suggest you watch my recent playthrough, over on the Retro Revelations Youtube channel! Until next time, T-t-t-t-that's All, Folks!

Forgotten Gems: Flying Warriors

As a poor kid in the early 90s, having not even gotten my NES until fall 1990, while I did get games from time to time from somewhere like, say, Walmart (for example the incredible Monster in My Pocket game), a lot of games I managed to get, I got because of major sales. Specifically, and sadly, "Going Out of Business" type sales. In the town I lived in, there was an old Woolworth's store, which was one of the older department store chains in the US. At some point in the early 90s, after I had gotten my NES, the one in our town finally went out of business, and thanks to their own "Going Out of Business" sale, I was able to get several NES games that I otherwise likely wouldn't have gotten. Later on, I'm going to say a year or two later, the local K-Mart store also went out of business, and again I was able to get several games (and from that sale also a pile of old Nintendo Power magazines).

One of my sales "gems".

Among the games gleaned from these two sales, at least so far as I can remember, I was able to pick up such NES gems (and not so gems) as: Tiny Toon Adventures, Final Fantasy, Wall Street Kid, Solar Jetman, Orb 3D, Flying Dragon and Flying Warriors. As I recall, I do believe I got Flying Warriors, which actually was a later follow-up, first, from the Woolworth's sale. Then later, I got its spiritual predecessor, Flying Dragon, from the K-Mart sale. Seen above is the US box art for this game (though I've seen alternate art), the cover I got as a kid.

Now, it needs to be said, that at this early 90s time, I was directly in the throes of my obsession with the then new (released in 1991) arcade mega-hit, which basically gave birth to the modern one-on-one fighting game genre (it certainly refined it), Street Fighter II. SFII was essentially my introduction into martial arts stuff, for the most part, as I had not been really allowed to watch things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And it was specifically because of SFII, that I became not only obsessed with that game itself (though I rarely ever got to play it, which only fueled my obsession, making it like my Holy Grail), but with fighting games and the idea of martial arts in general. So when I was able to get games for my little NES that actually featured martial arts and tournament type fighting (a miracle in itself that my grandmother actually bought me these games in the first place), regardless of quality, I was enthralled!

What you see is what I got.

So, if my memory is correct, it is fairly easy to see how I could have been more than a bit disappointed when I got Flying Dragon from K-Mart, after having already owned and played the vastly superior "sequel" Flying Warriors. Released in the US in 1989, Flying Dragon was technically the second in the Hiyru no Ken (basically "Fist of the Flying Dragon") series. The first was known as Shanghai Kid, an arcade game which originated the fighting system the later games would use, and as such an early (and clunky) example of the one-on-one fighting genre that Street Fighter would later perfect. As you can see above, compared to its 1985 arcade cousin, Flying Dragon is actually pretty ambitious, not only adapting the in-ring tournament fighter aspect of Shanghai Kid, but fleshing the experience out by adding a side-scrolling element as well.

Unfortunately, while it's not a BAD game by any means, Flying Dragon is still fairly limited, and very rough around the edges. While a neat inclusion, and certainly lengthening the playability of the game, the side scrolling stages actually consist of looping levels. Meaning that you go through an area, fighting the same enemies and mini-bosses over and over, until you get all of the items that allow you to unlock a gate, beating the stage. Once you beat one of these stages, you got to a tournament fight, and have to battle one of your opponents in the "World Tournament of Contact Sports". The character, Ryuhi, has entered this tournament to avenge his master Juan's murder by the hands of mysterious Tusk Soldiers, and to retrieve the Secret Scrolls they stole.

The Tournament fights.

Keeping with what many games did around this mid-to-late 80s era, you cannot get the true ending of the game by beating it just once. Much like Ghosts n Goblins, or my own beloved Arkista's Ring, you have to beat it multiple times. In this specific case, the first time around, you have to collect all six of the Secret Scrolls the first time through to get the ending. The SECOND time through, you have to get not only the six scrolls, but also four mystic crystal balls. And if you DON'T get all of these items on the second (harder) playthrough, you won't get to see the game's true ending. I don't mind the idea of having a second, harder game to give players more to do after they've beaten a game. Hell, Mario and Zelda did that. But I DO mind the idea of not being able to actually see a game's ending until you beat it more than once. That's really kinda bullshit.

Overall, as I said, Flying Dragon is not a BAD game. It's just primitive and unrefined. Much as I did with most games I owned or rented as a kid, I still played it a lot, and tried my best to beat it (which I do believe I eventually did). But I simply did not find the story, nor far more repetitive gameplay (and having to beat it twice didn't help), as interesting, or fun, as I did the game that I'm REALLY here to talk about...

Cue Heroic Fanfare!

Released in 1991 in the US, the game known as Flying Warriors is an interesting case. It is actually made up of two Japan-only Famicom releases, the "sequels" to Flying Dragon, Hiryu no Ken 2 and 3. Apparently the game borrows elements from both games, while adding in some content of its own, which is a fairly unusual case when it comes to game localization. For whatever reasons, the developer, Culture Brain, decided when making this game for a western audience, to transform it into more of a "Saturday Morning Super Hero" type of deal. It still retained the mystic and martial arts elements (it would be pretty hard to remove those), but instead of transforming into armored mystic warriors, the heroes in this game transform into costumed super heroes. Culture Brain even went so far as to pay for multi-page, multi-part comic book style advertisements in North America, really selling the game as a comic book type of affair. Naturally, being big-time into the X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman cartoons of the early 90s, this made the game a huge draw for me.

Pretty bad ass.

I actually remember seeing these ads in classic gaming magazines like Game Pro, and these mini-comics really were pretty awesome. As for the game itself, aesthetically, even from the moment you power up the game, you are hit with a swell of super heroic-ness. The opening title theme is, in all seriousness, a pretty great piece of music, which you can listen to here. It definitely has a John Williams Superman type of vibe, and it does a good job helping to get you in the kind of mood for at least the tone the developers were trying for.

Takes a bit of learning.

As for the tone the game actually has? Well, it likely would have taken a lot of work to truly change what the game at its core was/is all about, which is the foundation of the Hiryu no Ken series: the martial arts theme and their fighting engine. The game starts you off as Rick Stalker (SUPER American name), who is in the mountains training with Kung Fu master who raised him, Gen Lao-Tsu. In fairly short order, after a quick tutorial session and a deadly walk through the hills, you learn that more is afoot than you would first suspect. Long ago some demon dude named Demonyx, of the Dark Dimension, tried to invade and rule the Light Dimension (where we live). He was repelled by a righteous warrior of Light called the Dragonlord. and sealed away with the pieces of the Mandara Talisman. But Demonyx warned that he would return when an Evil Red Star filled the sky. And now, naturally, it's up to Rick to FIND the pieces of this Talisman, and get ready to fight that SOB, to defend the Light Dimension again!

Just your average, quiet, demon-filled jog.

As you can see above, the game is more complex, graphically and otherwise, than its predecessor. The gameplay is still divided into side-scrolling levels, full of, quite frankly, a bit too much platforming for their own good (more on that later), and the one-on-one style fights. At first, these fights are with monks, to test your skill. But eventually, much like in Flying Dragon, you set off to take part in full blown martial art tournaments.

It was no Street Fighter, but it was what I had.

Now, hearkening back to my mention of Street Fighter II, as I stated before, I didn't get to play the game in arcades much, because my grandmother thought it was a waste of money. I DID get to play arcades sometimes, but far too rarely for my taste, and SFII itself super rarely. So in that sense it really was my "Holy Grail" at the time. I studied up on it, I read everything I could about the game and strategies for playing in magazines, I watched other kids play it every chance I got, etc. I would literally sit and think about what I would do in fights if I was able to play. And of course in practice, the rare times I DID get to play the game, I usually didn't last very long, only beating maybe one or two people before losing, because I obviously didn't have much practice.

So to me, only owning an NES, I took what little I could get when it came to a SFII-like experience, even if it was actually nothing close. With Flying Warriors, I had a game centered around martial arts, that even had a separate "Tournament Mode", which focused solely on this aspect. I played that mode by itself plenty, trying my best to pretend that it actually was some epic Street Fighter style affair. But really, poor-man's fighting game aside, at that age, Flying Warriors seemed like the perfect package for me. It had fighting, it had super heroes, mysticism, cool magic powers, etc. But there WAS one major flaw that held the whole thing back from being truly great...

Not all gameplay elements are created equal.

 



Not all too dissimilar from the Double Dragon or even Battletoads games, Flying Warriors is a game with its core in the fighting action. So much so, that this engine still shapes the gameplay on side-scrolling stages. Even though they try to throw in what can often be a copious amount of platforming, the way the mechanics in the game work, the jumping is stiff and often not precise enough for what they want you to do. It's not AS bad as the jumping in Double Dragon, but it's still a case of a non-platforming game trying to make you do platforming. I can recall one especially frustrating part a ways into the games, as you're making your way to the first tournament, and the game wants to you jump across this huge, gaping pit, Mario style. With moving platforms, and asshole enemies flying at you, and everything. Except UNLIKE Mario, your jumping controls and physics aren't built for that kind of action. So what happens? You can very easily wind up falling down the pit, a lot. And that kind of speed-bump in an otherwise decent game, can really sour the experience.

It's Morphin' Time!

Crappy jumping aside, the rest of the game's parts work well enough. As for the story, as you can see, Rick eventually picks up some allies as his journey moves along. Rick is joined by Mary Lynn, Hayato Go, Greg Cummings, and late in the game, Jimmy Culter Jr. (don't ask me where they picked those names), and together, as you might have guessed, they form the titular Flying Warriors. As the story progresses, you learn that forces from the Dark Dimension are at work, including a group of dark warriors who are your shadowy reflection, known as the Moonlight Warriors. If this all sounds like it should have been an anime or American cartoon series, well it's because it SHOULD have.

Ultimately, after fighting the Moonlight Warriors more than once, you finally encounter the big bad himself, Demonyx, and it all comes down to a final, epic battle. Which also brings up the last gameplay style this game presents you with. For BIG boss fights, but mainly for Demonyx himself, the fighting switches to a turn-based RPG style, with command menus and everything!

You might even call it, your Final Fantasy!

In fact, throughout the game you have a sort of "RPG Lite" system going on, as you gradually gain levels, and health, and the damage you can deal out goes up, etc. You not only need to "level grind" a bit if you want to get anywhere against Demonyx, but naturally, you also need all the pieces of the Talisman so you can seal his ass back up! Now the one area where I failed a bit as a kid when playing this, is that the upon beating the game normally, you are told that to get the TRUE ending (or somesuch), you have to beat the game on hard. And even as a kid, after working to beat an ALREADY fairly difficult game, I was like "Nah I'm good". I mean, I wanted to see the full ending, but I also didn't really feel like going through all of that again, but even harder. So I have, to date, never gotten the "True Ending" myself. I know, the shame.

All in all, Flying Warriors is a unique game, and an oddball mish-mash of parts. It isn't perfect, by any means, as the frustrating platforming can attest to. But it IS still a pretty solid game, and one worth checking out. I don't have the kind of patience and dedication to beat even crappy or hard-as-nails games that I had when I was young, but I'd still like to beat this game again someday. Though probably not on hard. I'm too old for that shit.

Forgotten Gems: Eternal Darkness

It's that time of year once again. Retro Revelations' anniversary season, the Halloween Season! So let's kick it into high gear in style! 

Back on November 18th, 2001, the Nintendo Gamecube debuted. Its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, had been the first console I ever bought myself, with my own money from my first real summer job, in the summer of 1998. As I've stated in the past, the NES is my favorite video game system of all time, closely followed by the SNES. Similarly, 2D sprite-based gaming was, is, and always will be my favorite, and preferred type of games. As far as I'm concerned, the mid-80s through mid-90s was THE "Golden Era" of gaming. It had the best of everything going on, arcades, PC games, the debut of true portable gaming, and of course home consoles. That being said, I did and still do have a fondness for the Nintendo 64, because it was my first system I got myself. I didn't love the era itself so much, as most companies veered hard away from 2D gaming, into early, clunky, fairly ugly 3D gaming. But I still had a lot of good times and fond memories with that system, and to a much lesser extent (because I didn't own one) the Sony Playstation.

When it came to the early 2000s, once the PS2 and Gamecube, and the new entry on the market, which sadly replaced Sega, the Microsoft Xbox, had all released, it was during that "generation" of gaming, that I became for a time, something less of a"gamer". It wasn't that I didn't like video games anymore, I did. But I wasn't AS interested in the new stuff coming out as I had been years prior. Part of it was because those were lean years, and I didn't myself own a Gamecube, and wouldn't come to have my own (used) PS2 until 2004. And part of it was, as I've said, the further push to mostly 3D gaming, just didn't always appeal to me.The tides of gaming were changing, and I wasn't fully on board with where things were going (or have continued to go).

My often mentioned friend Harold, however, DID have both a Gamecube and eventually a PS2. So when he would rent or buy certain games, I was able to still check them out, if I was interested. I'll fully admit that even had I the funds to buy one myself, I wasn't in a great hurry to buy a Gamecube, as there weren't a ton of games I loved on it. There were some that caught my fancy, like Wave Race: Blue Storm, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Metroid Prime. But there were two games, in particular, that Harold rented when I was around, that I DID fully fall in love with, and in both cases wound up liking and playing them more than Harold himself did. The first was the original brilliant puzzle/exploration game, Pikmin. The other? Was Eternal Darkness.

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Now Harold and I, being the bright young men we were, who kept up on gaming news and such pretty well, had been aware of this weird game, kind of obscure and offhandedly mentioned. It was originally in development for the Nintendo 64 late in its life, as many other Gamecube games had been, including Animal Crossing, Doshin the Giant, and Dinosaur Planet. But the developer, Silicon Knights, headed by designer Denis Dyack, decided (probably wisely), to move the game over to the more powerful upcoming Gamecube, which delayed its release by quite a bit. But when it finally did come out in the summer of 2002, I came over and Harold rented it. And as the saying goes, the rest was history.

I remember it pretty well, that first night playing it. We both started playing it together, and were impressed by the graphics (which were pretty good for the time), the better-than-usual voice acting, the better-than-Resident-Evil controls, etc. Now when I say "better than Resident Evil", what I mean, is that while Eternal Darkness isn't flawless by any means, and in its own way itself is kinda clunky, it was still worlds better to actually play than the early Resident Evil games, whose clunkiness was rivaled only by the likes of early Tomb Raider. I'll get more into that in a bit. Eventually, Harold got sleepy, and went off to bed, after we were a few chapters into the game. But me? Oh hell no! I was very much into the story, and wanted to see more.

In fact, I was enamored with this game from the moment I was pleasantly surprised, when it opened with that Edgar Allen Poe quote pictured above. The poem "The Raven" happens to be my favorite, perhaps of all time, and I was big into Poe in general in my teens (he was the reason I chose the Baltimore Ravens as my football team, because they were named after him). The smooth combination of Poe and HP Lovecraft influences on the game's setting and plot, aided greatly by voice acting that wasn't painful or laughable to listen to (like early RE games), really captured my attention and imagination. And so, there I was, up till the wee hours of the morning at Harold's house, playing this game, with the lights off, by myself, getting the ever living shit creeped out of me in the process.

The Tome of Eternal Darkness.

There is one such moment in the game, that I won't fully spoil because if you haven't played it, you really deserve to experience it. It was this moment that I experienced, alone, in the dark, after Harold had gone to bed. It involved the main character, in this huge dark mansion she's exploring all alone, and let's just say that when it (quite literally) popped up, it was perhaps the only moment in the entire otherwise VERY spooky game, that genuinely made me jump, and I was like "What the fuck!?" There were other WTF moments in my initial playthrough that I also didn't see coming, though they weren't the "made me jump" variety, but rather, involved a unique game mechanic that I'll ALSO explain in a bit.

As for the (unusually involved and fairly decent) storyline, the basic gist is as follows. Edward Roivas, a psychologist living in the ancestral mansion he inherited in Rhode Island, upon digging too deep into unknown secrets, is found not only dead, but his body quite destroyed, in the library of his home. His granddaughter, the main character Alexandra Roivas, a college student, was summoned to the mansion by police to try, however impossibly, to identify the mushed up corpse as that of her gramps. She is able to confirm his identity, because magically enough, one hand was left fairly untouched, with his ring that she recognized. From there, Alex is left alone in this spooky ass mansion, determined to find out just what in God's name could have possibly done that to her poor grandpa, her only living relative, and more importantly: WHY? Her search around the gloomy place, leads her to discover a secret room branching off from the library, where she finds the gross-ass book you see above: The Tome of Eternal Darkness. It is then that you, the player, along with Alex, start reading/experiencing the history of not only this evil book, but the very dark secrets that killed her grandfather.

The opening area.

The Tome itself, is obviously modeled after the fictional Necromomicon, originally from Lovecraftian lore. Like the Necronomicon appearance in the Evil Dead films, the Tome is also a book seemingly made of human flesh and bones, its pages written in human blood. Upon beginning to read the first "chapter", you the player are whisked away to Ancient Persia, 26 BC, and assume the role of Pious Agustus, a Roman Centurion, who is lured by mysterious whispering voices in the desert, to a strange, almost Stonehenge-esque stone circle. When he steps inside, he is teleported elsewhere, assumedly below to some secret temple. Weary but curious, Pious makes his way through this (relatively small) opening area, where the game teaches you pretty quickly, how to attack, etc. You run into ghoulish reanimated corpses, of the nearly skeletal variety, that you can dispatch quite easily, once you get the hang of the attack system. And then, as Pious, you too enter some secret room, and discover three mysterious glyphs. You have to choose one to advance, and once Pious does, he is permanently transformed into an undead sort of wraith himself, now the servant of whichever ancient horror you chose.

That rat-fuck son-of-a-bitch.

That is how the game starts out, and then of course you're taken back to the Roivas Mansion, and as Alexandra, must search the mansion for more pages to the Tome, to learn more of the story. The game unfolds thus, shifting between searching the mansion (and sometimes fighting monsters) as Alex, and playing various characters that she's reading about, and she herself basically experiences their parts of the story. That alone is pretty original, and I must say, even compared to most of today's more modern attempts at "cinematic, playable movie" type games, Eternal Darkness was far better at actual quality storytelling. The game features a total of twelve playable characters (if you include Pious at the beginning), each from various countries and time periods. In fact, there was originally supposed to be thirteen, as a Templar Knight character from the Crusades, was taken out (in my opinion wrongly), after the terror attacks of September 11th 2001 happened. In reality, you only go to a handful of locations in the game, Ancient Persia, an ancient Khmer Temple in Cambodia, a cathedral in France, the Roivas Mansion in Rhode Island, and the hidden underground Forgotten City. But you revisit these locales, playing as different characters throughout the centuries, starting in 26 BC, and leading all the way up to the present Alexandra lives in, 2000 AD. The locales are a bit different when you revisit them, accounting for time passed, and the machinations of the dark forces at work in the game. 

The symbols of the unspeakable Ancients.

As for the mysterious glyphs? Well, they actually represent a very key and important part of the gameplay itself. As you can see in the diagram above, the game (and story) has four major other-worldly powers at work, and they form some kind of arcane, and uneasy, balance with one another. When you, as Pious, choose one of the three glyphs at the beginning of the game, you are in a sense "choosing your own destructor" (ala Ghostbusters), because that glyph represents not only the power that Pious will serve, but it will also affect the entire game in many ways.

The three glyphs around the triangle, represent the three Ancients, basically Lovecraft's "Great Old Ones", timeless dark gods from some other plane of existence, who long to retake and probably destroy this world/universe that they once ruled. They are: Ulyaoth, represented by the blue glyph, a jelly-fish-like being whose domain is magickal power and the ethereal; Xel'lotath, represented by the green glyph, is a many-armed eel-like being, whose domain is the mind, and sanity; and Chattur'gha, represented by the red glyph, a great lobster-like being, whose domain is raw power and physical matter. Lastly, the fourth Ancient, represented by the purple glyph in the middle, is Mantorok, the only one of these creatures who is "on your side", in a way. "He" is a giant, many-eyed and many-mouthed slug-like being, who is said to have once been revered as a "fertility god", and is something of a Lord of the Earth, as well as being a rotting "Corpse God" of the dead. While the other three represent a strange "Rock, Paper, Scissors" kind of balance with each other, and exist outside of this reality, wishing to break back through, Mantorok existing on Earth somehow keeps the others at bay, and keeps their powers in check. However, "He" is also imprisoned in an ancient temple, impaled by many pillars, left slowly rotting and weakening over the centuries. Thus, his power over the others is waning, and they are able to exert more and more influence on the physical plane as time goes on.

Hey pal, you got a light?

Your choice of glyph in Pious' chapter serves more than just the story, however. As stated, it also affects and even alters the game itself. It slightly changes the monsters and trials you will face, as well as directly affecting you the player. For instance, if you choose Chattur'gha, because he is the Ancient of Power, his minions glow with red power, tend to be physically stronger and larger. But you the player also start out physically stronger, and the "focus", if you will, of your gameplay, is put more on your red Power meter, which becomes larger if you choose red. If you choose Ulyaoth or Xel'lotath, likewise, they are the Ancients of Magick and Sanity, which again alters the types of minions and challenges you will face, but also gives either you more Magick or Sanity meter. Ulyaoth's minions are smaller and weaker than Chattur'gha's, but later in the game some of them are also capable of great magical attacks, etc.

Now where Xel'lotath and Sanity comes in, is the one truly unique outstanding feature of this game that I mentioned before. Along with the Power/Health meter and Magick meter, you also have have a Sanity meter. Why this is important, is that depending on what character you're playing at any given time, and what they experience, what kind of success you have at killing monsters, etc., your Sanity meter will be affected. If you're good at kicking monsters' asses, your Sanity meter will refill and you'll be just hunky dory. But if you suck, your Sanity meter will drain. And the lower it gets, the more your in-game "Sanity" is affected. And different characters, depending basically on how spiritual/superstitious they might be, are affected more, or less, by the scary things you encounter. So some have weaker sanity, while others are stronger. If you choose Xel'lotath at the beginning of the game, your Sanity meter will be stronger, which helps, but in turn your physical power will be weaker.

Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Xel'lotath?

As for the Sanity Effects themselves? Well, if your meter only drops a bit, you will eventually encounter surreal effects like hearing spooky whispers, having statues watch you and their heads follow your movement through a room, hearing a woman's crying in the background, spooky noises start getting louder and louder, having the room/camera tilt, the walls looking like they're bleeding, etc. But if it starts getting SUPER low, the game really starts messing with you.

I myself experienced some of these, having no real idea what was coming, so they all came as a surprise. Just some of the things I experienced included walking into a room that isn't supposed to be there, that you can't get out of, etc., and then BAM, you're back in the last room you were in. Or walking into a new room, and your character slowly starts sinking into the floor for no apparent reason, only to once again, BAM, back in the other room. Some of the most extreme effects, however, were when the game would make it suddenly seem as if your TV's volume was turning itself down to silent, only to come blaring back. Or probably the worst one I can remember, that actually made me mad for a second, was when I suddenly got a notice on screen that my save card data had been corrupted, meaning I was going to lose all of my progress and then, OH SHIT JUST KIDDING BRO! And needless to say, while all of these "Sanity Effects" are going on, and getting worse, it makes the game itself harder to play, the dangers harder to navigate. So it's in your best interest to "git gud", and keep your Sanity meter as high as possible.

Magick is a hell of a drug.

As for the other two aspects of the game, Power and Magick? Well, with Power, that deals with your physical attacks and health. As I said early in the article, the original Resident Evil games were clunky as hell. They were SPOOKY and interesting, but the actual gameplay could at times be a bit of a chore, ESPECIALLY when trying to fight monsters. With ED, they have a system in place where when you are faced with a monster, you hold down the R-button to "center" on them, similar to 3D Zelda games. And from there, you can highlight their torso, right or left arm, or head, and you are then able to individually single out and attack those specific body parts. The combat itself is still a BIT clunky, but it's far more workable in the heat of battle than early RE games. Once you get the hang of it, it is actually possible to get pretty good at the combat, and be able to competently defend yourself against most monsters. If you choose Chattur'gha, your power meter will start out bigger and you'll get stronger as the game goes on, but your Magick and Sanity will be weaker.

As for Magick, as you can see above, the game has a fairly complex Magick system. In fact, I could see someone arguing that it's a bit TOO complex, simply because you have to find and learn all of these different glyphs, you need a specific tablet to translate/read them, you need specific scrolls for specific "spells", etc. At first, your spells are simple, with only a few runes to work with, but eventually, as you can see, you learn more complex and more powerful configurations, that can do a variety of things, from refilling your own Power or Sanity, to temporarily freezing or even damaging an enemy. Late in the game, knowing how to use Magick in tandem with physical attacks becomes a must.

Alexandra Roivas, monster slayer.

Ultimately, which Ancient alignment you choose at the outset, truly does shape the whole game. It changes monster types and encounters you may have, subtly alters certain little story bits, etc. For one thing, as previously stated, the Three Ancients exist in a kind of "Paper, Rock, Scissors" limbo with each other, meaning that each one is specifically strong against one other while also being specifically weak against one other. For example, red is strong against green enemies, but is weaker against blue ones. As you play through the game the first time, this will come up, especially at the end, as you will, ironically, need the power of one of rival Ancients to the one which you've chosen for Pious to serve, to "aid" you.

And once you beat the game that first time? Well, you can go back, choose one of the other two alignments, and then do it all again! It's basically the same game each time, but there are enough differences in how the powers affect your playthrough, to make it interesting. In fact the game will not allow you to choose the same alignment again on a specific save file, until you have beaten all three. And yes, when you beat the game with each alignment, you do get a slightly different ending each time. If you're patient enough and strong enough to beat the game THREE times, with all three alignments? Then you are rewarded with the TRUE final ending of the game, which of course I'm not going to spoil. It can be a bit tedious to beat the same basic game three times, but it does add nice replay value, when these types of games are far too often a matter of "beat them once to see the story and then never touch them again".

Why...hello there!

Getting back to my own experience, playing this trough that first time, I did generally really enjoy myself. The story had my attention, and while I'm sure there were some frustrating parts later into the game that probably made me mad, I soldiered through to the end, and beat the game with at least one of the alignments that first time Harold rented it. I really enjoyed how you got to play all of these different people, and saw their varying parts in this unfolding horror. Yet it wasn't merely an unfolding horror, as each one of them also contributes in some meaningful way, to essentially being some kind of resistance to this inevitable return of the Ancient which will destroy our world. In fact, in a very real way, as you see all of these characters' little pieces of the story throughout the game, from time to time you even encounter the spirits of past characters in the same locales, and thus they help you, and are adding their knowledge and power to your own, to help you beat them. So in that way, in SOME small way, each character you play throughout the game, helps to empower Alexandra at the end, in 2000 AD, to face down the threat and try to defeat it.

The Final Confrontation.

Without spoiling TOO much, that rat bastard Pious Augustus acts as the primary villain throughout the game, popping up at nearly every turn, serving whatever Ancient power you chose, committing all kinds of dastardly acts and vile evil in the name of his master. Eventually, once Alexandra has read all of the chapters of the Tome, she discovers a secret way to the ancient Forgotten City, a place where unspeakable horrors exist, and you must fight your way through to have your final, fateful encounter with Pious. It's basically up to one poor college girl in her early 20s, to save the world, nay, the UNIVERSE, from destruction.

I wouldn't say that Eternal Darkness is in my Top 10, or perhaps even Top 20 favorite games EVER. But, I WILL say, with surety, that it is definitely my favorite "Survival Horror" game of all time. Everything from being a more involved, action-y type of game than those games at least USED to be, to having an actually engrossing, interesting story of Lovecraftian otherworldly terror to keep you playing. The game has genuine chills and moments that will make you jump, but it also puts it in you, the player's hands whether you get a horrible, depressing ending or not. You can, in a way, affect your own fate, and that's a nice feature too.

Who likes episodic content?

On a final note, back when the Nintendo Wii U console was new (circa, let's say, 2013 or so), Denis Dyack and Co. tried, and failed, to run a crowd funding campaign for a spiritual sequel/successor to ED. I think part of why it failed, was because their dumbass idea, was to have it be an "episodic" game, meaning that you had to separately pay for and download parts of the story, which you would have to WAIT for each one to release to be able to see the next part, etc. I don't know about you, but that isn't very appealing, and also stinks of fleecing the customer.

To me, what they SHOULD have done, was worked directly with Nintendo again, made a legit, straight up "Eternal Darkness 2", officially, and made it ONE game, no bullshit. But then again? ED also doesn't NEED a sequel. It was a perfectly good, self-contained story, in and of itself. What I WOULDN'T mind, however, was an HD remake of sorts. Keep the original voice acting, but give the game improved/updated graphics and sound and music. Maybe polish and tweak the gameplay somewhat to make it smoother. But THAT, a good remake/remaster of this game, I'd buy.



                                                                     ************



 So if you're looking for a spooky game to play this October, and own an old Gamecube or Nintendo Wii, you can find used copies of this for sale for reasonably cheap online, considering how rare the game probably is now (it wasn't a "best seller" in its original release). Unfortunately, Nintendo is stupid and never kept their word about releasing Gamecube games for Virtual Console on Wii U, and now that Switch doesn't HAVE a VC, who knows if they'll ever re-release this game, digitally or otherwise. They SHOULD go the remake route, as I think it'd sell. But if you can snag an old copy, and haven't played it before, then I'd say you're in for a treat! Just watch out when you're peeking around that mansion.....